Presidential debate: Romney comes out forcefully vs. Obama

An energetic and aggressive Mitt Romney took on a subdued President Barack Obama Wednesday over jobs, taxes, Medicare, health care and even Big Bird in the first high-stakes debate of the 2012 White House campaign.

The Republican Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, hit Obama hard on a key legislative accomplishment of his administration, the 2010 health-care overhaul law. Romney attacked the law, which he and other critics refer to as "Obamacare," as a job killer while the president defended it as a crucial safety net for millions of American families.

The stakes at the University of Denver in Colorado could not have been higher for Romney. The first of three presidential debates came at a point when national polls indicate a tight race but usually show Obama with a modest lead. In key swing states, polls have suggested that Romney has an even more daunting challenge to change the trajectory of the race with just five weeks left until Election Day.

Romney has been dogged in recent weeks by campaign missteps, and needed a strong performance to help regain his equilibrium. He may have cleared that goal, aided in part by Obama's lackluster showing during the 90-minute showdown on domestic issues. A post-debate CNN poll indicated that Romney was the runaway winner.

Romney, who was calm, easily rattled off information on a variety of topics and managed to work a number of personal stories into his remarks, succeeded in appearing presidential, the main task of the night, said Earl de Berge, research director for the Rocky Mountain Poll.

"He came off well-disciplined and on top of his facts," de Berge, a nonpartisan pollster, said. The goal for any challenger is to "give off the aura of a strong, principled, visionary type of leader. Romney did that."

The two candidates presented their competing ideological visions for creating jobs and improving the still-sluggish economy.

Obama said the economy has been getting better, but called for improving public education, which would include hiring 100,000 more science and math teachers, creating 2 million slots in community colleges for job training and keeping tuition low. He said he wanted to lower the corporate tax rate and provide tax breaks for companies that invest in the United States, as well as boost domestic energy production and invest in future energy sources such as wind, solar and biofuels. He said Romney's plan would include $5 trillion in tax cuts that would hamper the nation's ability to make those key investments.

"Ultimately, it's going to be up to the voters -- to you -- which path we should take," he said. "Are we going to double-down on the top-down economic policies that helped to get us into this mess, or do we embrace a new economic patriotism that says America does best when the middle-class does best."

Rejecting what he called Obama's "trickle-down government" approach, Romney promised to push for North American energy independence; open up more trade, particularly in Latin America, and crack down on China if it cheats; make sure America's schools are the world's best; pursue a balanced federal budget and champion small businesses. He repeatedly denied having a $5 trillion tax cut, but did promise tax relief for the middle-income Americans. He said wealthy Americans will do well under either president.

But "under the president's policies, middle-income Americans have been buried -- they're just being crushed," Romney said. "Middle-income Americans have seen their income come down by $4,300. This is a tax in and of itself."

Romney and Obama's clash over the president's signature health-care reform was a centerpiece of the debate.

"I just don't know how the president could have come into office facing 23 million people out of work, rising unemployment, an economic crisis at the kitchen table and spend his energy and passion for two years fighting for Obamacare instead of fighting for jobs for the American people," Romney said. "It has killed jobs. And the best course for health care is to do what we did in my state: craft a plan at the state level that fits the needs of the state and then lets focus on getting the costs down for people, rather than raising it with a $2,500 additional premium."

Obama pushed back by stressing that the health-care law helped millions of families that were worrying about going bankrupt if they got sick or getting health coverage with a pre-existing condition. The law doesn't constitute a government takeover of the health-care industry, he said, "but it does say insurance companies can't jerk you around" with arbitrary lifetime limits and other conditions.

"We did work on this alongside working on jobs because this is part of making sure middle-class families are secure in this country," Obama said.

Obama also noted that the national law was based on a Republican idea and a health-care-reform law implemented in Massachusetts while Romney was governor.

"The irony is that we've seen this model work really well in Massachusetts because Governor Romney did a good thing, working with Democrats in the state, to set up what is essentially the identical model," Obama said. "As a consequence, people are covered there. It hasn't destroyed jobs. And as a consequence, we know have a system in which we have the opportunity to start bringing down costs as opposed to just leaving millions of people out in the cold."

Romney countered that he worked with a Democrat-dominated Legislature and didn't raise taxes or cut Medicare and let people keep their own insurance plans.

"I agree that the Democratic legislators in Massachusetts might have given some advice to Republicans in Congress about how to cooperate," Obama said. "The fact of the matter is we used the same advisers, and they say it's the same plan."

De Berge, the Phoenix pollster, was surprised Obama didn't deploy attacks on Romney that have become a big part of the campaign, such as referencing Romney's secretly recorded comments that 47 percent of Americans "believe that they are victims."

"Maybe (Obama is) holding them in his holster for the next debate," de Berge said.

De Berge said Romney did a good job of repeatedly saying he didn't want to kill jobs.

Other debate watchers on both sides of the political aisle took note of Obama's dull performance.

One Democratic observer speculated that Obama may not have wanted to go on the attack Wednesday.

"Governor Romney was much more aggressive," said Ron Ober, who was chief of staff to former Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., and is the founder of the Phoenix consulting firm Policy Development Group. "There weren't any knockouts tonight, and I think the campaign goes on and it's going to be a race through Nov. 6."

Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, a Republican, predicted that Romney connected with voters during the debate.

"You really didn't feel like President Obama was even in the debate," DiCiccio said.

-- Romney, responding to moderator Jim Lehrer, a PBS host, who had asked how he would cut the federal deficit

2. "I have become fond of this term 'Obamacare.'"

-- Obama, about the term opponents use to refer to his health-care reform law

3. "Look, I got five boys. I'm used to people saying something that's not always true and just keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I'll believe it."

-- Romney, rebutting Obama's claim that he would cut taxes for high-income people

4. "Under Governor Romney's definition, there are a whole bunch of millionaires and billionaires who are small businesses. Donald Trump is a small business, and I know Donald Trump doesn't like to think of himself as small anything."